Serhij Zhadan
Serhiy Zhadan was born in Starobilsk, near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, in 1974 and studied German at Kharkiv University. He has been one of the most influential figures in the Kharkiv scene since the early 1990s. He made his literary debut at 17 and has published numerous volumes of poetry and prose. He was awarded the Jan Michalski Prize and the Brücke Berlin Prize (together with translators Juri Durkot und Sabine Stöhr) for Ворошиловград. BBC Ukraine named Ворошиловград the Book of the Decade. In 2022, Zhadan was named Man of the Year by Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) and awarded the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his »outstanding artistic work and his humanitarian stance with which he turns to the people suffering from war and helps them at the risk of his own life.« Zhadan lives in Kharkiv and has been a soldier in the Ukrainian army since 2024.
Serhiy Zhadan was born in Starobilsk, near Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, in 1974 and studied German at Kharkiv University. He has been one of the most influential figures in the Kharkiv scene since the early 1990s. He made his literary debut at 17 and has published numerous volumes of poetry and prose. He was awarded the Jan Michalski Prize and the Brücke Berlin Prize (together with translators Juri Durkot und Sabine Stöhr) for Ворошиловград. BBC Ukraine named Ворошиловград the Book of the Decade. In 2022, Zhadan was named Man of the Year by Gazeta Wyborcza (Poland) and awarded the prestigious Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for his »outstanding artistic work and his humanitarian stance with which he turns to the people suffering from war and helps them at the risk of his own life.« Zhadan lives in Kharkiv and has been a soldier in the Ukrainian army since 2024.
Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels 2022 (Germany)
Sergio Vieira de Mello Award 2022 (Poland)
Freiheitspreis der Frank-Schirrmacher-Stiftung 2022 (Germany)
EBRD Literature Prize 2022 for Інтернат (UK)
Drahomán Prize 2020 for Aнтена (Ukraine)
ANGELUS Literary Award for Месопотамія 2015 (Poland)
Brücke Berlin Prize for Literature and Translations 2014 for...
Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels 2022 (Germany)
Sergio Vieira de Mello Award 2022 (Poland)
Freiheitspreis der Frank-Schirrmacher-Stiftung 2022 (Germany)
EBRD Literature Prize 2022 for Інтернат (UK)
Drahomán Prize 2020 for Aнтена (Ukraine)
ANGELUS Literary Award for Месопотамія 2015 (Poland)
Brücke Berlin Prize for Literature and Translations 2014 for Ворошиловград (Germany)
Jan Michalski Literature Prize 2014 for Ворошиловград (Switzerland)
BBC Ukraine Book Of The Decade 2014 for Ворошиловград (Ukraine)
Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski Literary Prize 2009 (Poland)
»Zhadan is a poet, rock star, and activist whose verse is rooted his native Eastern Ukraine. He draws metaphors from daily life that in turn become the subjects of his poems, and Tkacz and Phipps have brought these images to life in an English that does justice to Zhadan’s urgent messages about life, war, and love.« Amelia Glaser
»More, perhaps, than any other writer from the post-Soviet era, Serhiy Zhadan speaks to this experience of national and personal upheaval ... « The Times Literary Supplement
»A literary master of enormous force.« Ilya Kaminsky
»Serhiy Zhadan is one of the most important creators of European culture at work today.« Timothy Snyder, author of On Tyranny
»Zhadan's prose is so poetic, his free verse so prosaic. It is difficult to assign a genre to his work: memoir, travelogue, timely or untimely meditation – or a mixture of all these, centered on the themes my generation and our epoch.« Rostislav Melnikov and Yuriy Tsaplin, New Literary Review
PUBLICATIONS
Cease-Fire
Arabesques
»The trams haven’t been running since February.« Time and again, we encounter moments of calm in this city haunted by the spectre of war. People meet up in places that are still more or less...
English world rights (Yale UP), France (Noir sur Blanc), Netherlands (De Geus), Sweden (Ersatz), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Finland (Sammakko), Poland (Czarne), Romania (Cartier)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Radio Reading (MDR / NDR)
Chronicle of My Own Breath
Poland (Literackie)
Sky Above Kharkiv
This volume contains a selection of texts that Serhiy Zhadan has been publishing on Facebook since the start of the war on February 24, 2022.
He doesn’t have time to keep a diary....
English world rights (Yale UP), Poland (Czarne), Slovak Republic (Brak)
Antenna
Sweden (Fri Tanke), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Poland (Wrocławski Dom Literatury), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor), Bulgaria (Paradox)
The Orphanage
A young teacher plans on bringing his 13-year-old nephew home from the boarding school at the other end of town. The school, in which his working sister has »parked« her son, has come...
English world rights (Yale UP), English Audiobook (Blackstone), Spanish world rights (Galaxia Gutenberg), Catalan rights (Quaderns Crema), Portuguese rights (Elsinore), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Netherlands (de Geus), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Norway (Pax), Finland (Sammakko), Japan (Bulrush), Poland (Czarne), Czech Republic (Argo), Czech Audiobook (OneHotBook), Slovak Republic (Absynt), Hungary (Magvetö), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Estonia (Hea Lugu), Latvia (Janis Roze), Lithuania (Kitos Knygos), Croatia (Edicije Božičević), Slovenia (Beletrina), Greece (Dioptra), North Macedonia (Matica), Belarus (Januškevič), Georgia (Intelekti), Israel (Hakkibutz Hameuchad)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Lindhardt & Ringhof / Saga Egmont)
Why I Am Not Online
»It’s tough to see history being made.« Since the summer of 2014, Serhiy Zhadan notes down his experiences on his journeys into the eastern Ukrainian war zone. They are poetic...
English world rights (selection; Yale UP), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Poland (selection; PIW), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor)
Mesopotamia
English world rights (Yale UP), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Norway (Pax), Poland (Czarne), Hungary (Magvető), Latvia (Janis Roze), Belorussia (Januskevic), Georgia (Intelekti)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Schall & Wahn)
Voroshilovgrad
English world rights (Deep Vellum), Spanish world rights (Galaxia Gutenberg), Russia (Astrel), Portuguese rights (Elsinore), Arabic world rights (Here&There), France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Netherlands (De Geus), Denmark (Jensen & Dalgaard), Sweden (Ersatz), Poland (Czarne), Poland Graphic Novel (Artur Wabik), Czech Republic (Argo), Slovak Republic (Dajama), Bulgaria (Paradox), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Latvia (Janis Roze), Croatia (Edicije Božičević), Slovenia (Beletrina), Belarus (Logvinau), Georgia (Intelekti)
Previously published in the respective language / territory; rights available again: Hungary (Europa)
Democratic Youth Anthem
Russia (Amphora), Poland (Czarne), Slovak Republic (Brak), Bulgaria (Paradox)
Anarchy in the UKR
France (Noir sur Blanc), Italy (Voland), Sweden (Bonniers), Norway (Pax), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Belarus (Skaryna Press)
Depeche Mode
English world rights (Glagoslav), Russia (Amphora), Italy (Castelvecchi), Sweden (2244/Bonniers), Poland (Czarne), Czech Republic (Éditions Fra), Hungary (Europa), Bulgaria (Paradox), Republic of Moldova / Romanian rights (Cartier), Estonia (Loomingu Raamatukogu), Lithuania (Kitos Knygos), Greece (Dioptra)
Domestic Rights Sales: German Audiobook (Schall & Wahn)
Big Mac
With the success of Democratic Youth Anthem, Serhiy Zhadan has established himself as the most original counter-voice to the poetic observations of Juri Andruchowytsch. In Big...
Bulgaria (Paradox)
The History of Culture at the Beginning of the Century
Only in an environment in which anachronistic industrial plants sit in the landscape like dinosaurs, rotting away as the last witnesses of the grandiose Soviet experiment, could the...
English world rights (selection; Yale UP), Russia (Agorisk), Finland (selection; Sammakko), Hungary (selection; Jelenkor)